Analysis: Health Care Insiders Are Outside Looking In

July 13, 2017

Media Outlet: Roll Call

Lee Drutman's expertise on lobbying was referenced in a recent Roll Callarticle about why lobbyists have been unable to stop the Republican healthcare bill.

Despite a mystique that K Street controls the unseen levers of power in Washington, a contingent of well-known and flush-with-cash groups representing doctors, hospitals, patients and seniors appears so far unable to kill — or significantly alter — a bill its members despise.

The opposition of the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, AARP and other prominent groups did not stop the House from passing its version of a replacement for the 2010 health care law. Now, those lobbies are searching for the precious few pressure points to help derail the Senate bill...

...“These are large-scale political dynamics that any single company or industry doesn’t get to shape,” says Lee Drutman, author of “The Business of America is Lobbying.”